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A. I am unfortunately very busy, both with work, and other independantprojects (that I hope may someday be the next JBidwatcher). It takesme around 5-10 minutes per email to respond, and I get enough that Iwouldn't have the time to spend with my wife, much less otherprojects, were I to respond to all of them.

I read every email, and I really try to respond to as many as I can,but sometimes a week goes by where I just don't have the chance, andthen I'm behind by an unresolvable amount. At that point my onlyreasonable option is to let things fall on the floor.

JBidwatcher is definitely still being supported. If I ever choose notto, that will be front-and-center in big letters on the JBidwatcherhome page. Also, if I ever do decide to stop, the first thing I'll dois try to see if anyone else is interested in maintaining it.

I don't see me stopping JBidwatcher any time soon, though. In fact,I'm actually working on the 'next version' of JBidwatcher, with achanged UI, and lots of advanced features.

A. If your eBay name has a 'strikethrough' over it, it meansJBidwatcher is having trouble logging in as you, and it means that a snipeon your behalf might not fire. You should hover your cursor over thestrikeout, and a tooltip should pop up and let you know what it thinks is wrong.

A. If you're having sign-in problems, the most likely issue is eBay putting up acaptcha, in which case you need to actually stop using JBidwatcher for a day orso, log in normally (through your browser) and let eBay's security system relaxabout your account.

If you're running Windows, it may be a different kind of security failure.First, upgrade your version of Java by going here:http://java.sun.com/getjava
and install that. It may help, especially if you're seeing something about SSL or certificates.

A. Look in ~/.jbidwatcher for files named error.##.log (where ## is a number).

On Windows it's usually:C:\Documents and Settings\{username}\.jbidwatcher
On the Mac it's at:/Users/{username}/.jbidwatcher
but you can't use the Finder to see it, you have to get to it from the Terminal.
On Linux, it's just:~/.jbidwatcher

A. The most common answer is that eBay changed something, and JBidwatcher wasunable to recognize the response from eBay. JBidwatcher keeps error pages,until the program is shut down. You can view them (if you haven't shut JBidwatcherdown yet) by choosing the auction which had an issue, right-clicking (orcontrol-clicking on a Mac) and selecting 'Show last error' to see what happened.

A. Firstly, no JBidwatcher will not work. While I could design an algorithmto break eBay's CAPTCHA, I will not, because it would be abused by peoplelooking to break into accounts. Secondly, it would be a great deal ofwork to do (and increase the size of JBidwatcher substantially) just foran eBay tool. Thirdly, eBay could easily change it so that my algorithmno longer worked, and I'd be out that work, without anything useful formy users.

Really the only answer for making the CAPTCHA go away is to stop usingJBidwatcher for a little while. JBidwatcher *cannot* bypass the CAPTCHA,because that's what the CAPTCHA is designed to do.

The issue is this: eBay sees 'suspicious behavior' on your account,of some kind. Very possibly multiple failed login attempts. Theyturn on CAPTCHA's for it. They won't turn it off until the loginfailures cease. JBidwatcher *normally* detects the CAPTCHA andinforms you that it won't even try to log in. They may have changedthe wording, so JBidwatcher isn't detecting it anymore, but theunderlying issue is the same.

As long as there's a CAPTCHA, JBidwatcher will fail to log in, whichwill cause eBay to continue to show CAPTCHA's. You need to stop usingJBidwatcher for a little while, log in normally, and use eBaynormally. After a day or so, the security alert on your account willgo away, and you can log in normally. Then JBidwatcher should worknormally also. (Just make sure it's got the correct accountinformation in it, or the whole problem will start again. Myrecommendation is to set the correct username/password in JBidwatcher,save the config, and close and restart the program.)

eBay's security trappings are annoying, but they are just trying toavoid people running 'bots' to try passwords against their user'saccounts.

A future version may have a 'once a day' requirement, that means that ifthere's a captcha up, you have to manually respond to it once a day in orderto keep JBidwatcher working. It's about the best I can come up with, but itshould work.

A. No, JBidwatcher synchronizes it's view of the time every 30-40minutes, using the time difference between your system clock and theeBay clock as its adjustment to what your computer's clock says it is.It tries very hard to line itself up with eBay's time.

A. Well, in the Configuration Manager (File | Configure, or thetwo-checkbox icon on the toolbar), under the 'Paths' tab, you can setthe save file path.

However, it doesn't save all files in there. Archived copies of theauctions (and their thumbnails, and one backup) are kept in~/.jbidwatcher/auctionsave, and that can't be configured through theUI yet, for instance. However those files are all deleted when youdelete an auction from JBidwatcher.

There are also log files that get deleted under normal circumstances.

You can completely configure where JBidwatcher looks for things bysetting 'java.home' on the launch properties, but that's a lot harderon Mac OS X than a configuration tab. (Some folks use this on Windowsto run entirely out of a USB stick, for instance.) On the Mac you'ddo it by editing either Info.plist or MRJApp.properties, I think. Notfor the faint-hearted.

So, you can get access to the save file pretty easily. But if you'relooking for all the auxiliary files that get created, that's a harderproblem.

A. Unfortunately JBidwatcher doesn't cleanly support two different eBayaccounts. There are tricksy ways to get it to work, but right now it'snot really straightforward. It's one of the features I want to put intothe next big version of JBidwatcher...

A. It's inherited from Windows, but it can be configured... If you gointo JBidwatcher's Configuration Manager (the two checkbox icon, orFile | Configure), and go to 'advanced'.

For the key, type in 'selection.color', and for the value, you type ahex representation of the color you want, in RRGGBB format. Thismight not mean anything to you, so here are two colors that might begood to start with:

C6A646 for a slightly brown/tan-ish selectionand999999 for a medium grey selection.

A. It doesn't, unfortunately. For that, you have to figure out shippingusing their tool, then set the shipping in the program (right-click(or control-click on a Mac) on the auction, and choose 'Set Shipping'.Once you've set the shipping cost, you can include it in amultisnipe, and it'll figure it out based on the number you set.

A. It was a requested feature for multi-sniping... Mainly it means tosubtract the shipping and insurance from the amount you enter. So,for example, if you want to pay a maximum of 50 *including* shippingand (if relevant) insurance, then you'd enter 50 in the snipe box, andcheck that note. All it does is subtract the shipping and insurancefrom the amount you enter. This isn't too useful in the case of asingle auction, as you can calculate that for yourself.

However, when multi-sniping, it's definitely useful as items can varywildly in their shipping amounts.

If the shipping changes after you've placed the snipe, the value willnot adjust, it's a one-time setup.

A. That's not a good sign, unfortunately. I'd try going to the eBaymenu, and choosing 'Refresh eBay Session', or shutting down andrestarting JBidwatcher, to see if it helps. But if JBidwatcher can'tlog into eBay, then it's not going to be able to snipe.

A. If you right-click (or control-click ona Mac) on the tab names, youcan create new tabs. Create any number of tabs, and you can select aset of items, right-click (or CTRL-Click) on the selected block ofauctions, and choose 'Send to...', and you should be able to chooseyour new tab.

A. Download the Sun Java runtime, because the GNU libgcj / gijversion doesn't support a bunch of pieces of Java. I have no idea whythe various Linux distros are shipping it as default (especiallyRedhat and Ubuntu), but it just doesn't work.

A. In your Start Menu there's a section (under Programs, usually) named'Startup'. If you right-click the JBidwatcher icon, drag it to yourStart Menu, wait for a moment (still holding the drag), it'll pop upthe menu, and you can drag to Programs, then to Startup, and thenfinally drop it in the Startup folder. Because you did it with theright-click button, it'll prompt you to copy, move, or create ashortcut. Choose create shortcut, and a little icon of JBidwatchershould show up in there.

Now it *should* startup automatically in the future. (Testing itwould be prudent, but I understand not wanting to shut down yourcomputer just to test.)

A. That's often a signal of a network issue; the red eye only shows upwhen it really can't get the pages from eBay at all. Sometimes thiscan mean eBay has removed the pages (mainly on mature audiencesitems), but usually it means that there's a problem connecting toeBay. (This also happens when eBay has their occasional maintenance,when you can't reach the pages.)

Click refresh all (the little button with the two arrows pointing ateach other) when you're sure you've got a good network connection, andsee if it helps. You might also try shutting down and restartingJBidwatcher if you haven't already.

There should be 'auctions.xml', and a number of backups (the last 5days, by date, and 5 hourly backups). First I'd suggest saving offthat directory (I'm presuming you've gotten the data transferred ontoa working drive), and then trying to copy the old auction files ontoauctions.xml until you find one that works.

If nothing else works, there's an 'auctionsave' directory, whichcontains archives of the HTML (and thumbnails) for each of theauctions it's seen (minus the deleted ones). It's possible in extremecircumstances to use that list of auction numbers to retrieve theoriginal auctions if they're still on eBay, but that's really adesperation option more than anything else.

User log in information is stored in 'JBidWatch.cfg', whichunfortunately isn't backed up in multiple files like auctions.xml, butit can all be easily re-entered in the configuration manager.

A. Yes. In fact, if you try to exit JBidwatcher when you have set asnipe to happen, it'll warn you about that.

The JBidwatcher software places the bid directly with the eBay site,when it's time; in order for that to work, JBidwatcher needs to berunning, and the computer needs to be on, and awake. Computers thatautomatically go to sleep in such a way as to shut down networking,and/or not let software continue running, will interfere withJBidwatcher's operation.

A. JBidwatcher doesn't really do a very good job of doing currencyconversion. It relies entirely on eBay's vision of currencyconversion, and can only (more or less) convert between currenciesthat it's currently monitoring.

A. Go to the configuration manager (the two checkbox icon, or File |Configure), and go to the 'Advanced' tab. Here you can enter:selection.color
in the 'Configuration Key' box. Hit enter, and move to the'Configuration value' entry. Here you can enter a hex value for thecolor to use as the selection background. It uses the same format asHTML (RRGGBB), for what it's worth. The first two hex digits (0-F)are red, ranging from 00 as black to FF as bright red. The second twoare similarly green, the last two are blue. For instance, C6A646 isthe value I have as my selection color. (Actually, I have it set asmy Windows-wide selection color via the Display Properties panel, butit works well on a per-app level also.)

JBidwatcher uses the system selection color, unless overridden. If Iwere to change that to a different color as default, I would have farmore complaints that it wasn't behaving in a system-appropriate mannerthan I have now about difficult-to-read lines. In the future I maymake it easier to configure all the various colors, but for nowthe by-hand configuration is relatively straightforward.

A. One of the major reasons I don't charge for JBidwatcher isthat, unlike a spreadsheet which is entirely self-contained, it isALWAYS possible for JBidwatcher to be broken arbitrarily (and maybeeven permanently!) by matters entirely out of my and my users control.

I'd feel REALLY bad if I took someone's money as a sale, and eBaywent to captcha's for every login, for instance (to name a seriousissue that many of my users are facing).

I describe money people send me right now as donations, because ifthey send me anything at all, I want it to be on account of the helpit has brought them in the past, and purely because they want to showtheir appreciation, not necessarily what it will bring them in thefuture. As they say in the financial industry, unfortunately:

A. If a snipe is set, JBidwatcher always tries to bid at the end of theauction.

If there are no other bids, JBidwatcher will still place a bid, and ifnobody else bids against you, you will get the item at the sellersminimum bid price.

If you are already the highest bidder, the bid placed at the end ofthe auction will not affect your existing high bid.

There is an exception, for example if you bid $20, and some other usercomes along later and bids $20, then you will be the high bidder asexact ties are resolved to the earliest bidder. If you come back andup your bid to $25 after that, for example via a snipe, then eBayconsider you bidding against the other (later) bidder, and willratchet up the bid to one minimum bid increment higher ($21, if Irecall).

Ties and near-ties are one of the more confusing parts for new eBayusers, but in all other cases JBidwatcher's bid will not affect thecurrent price if you are high bidder. (Not as true in Dutch auctions,but Dutch auctions are more complex in many ways.)

An important feature I think you might have missed is the way eBaysbid process works. It is a specific type of auction, a 'highestbidder, second price' auction.

What this means is that the highest bidder always wins, but they onlypay a price based on what the second-highest bidders price was. So ifyou bid $1000, but the next highest person bids $10, you'll only haveto pay $10.50, which is one minimum bid over the 'second price'. Thisis not just true of sniping, but of the normal bidding process on eBayas well.

This is why JBidwatcher doesn't need a lot of time at the end of theauction, to place lots of bids. It just places the one bid, yourmaximum, and lets the underlying system manage the 'second price'nature of it.

A. Try right-clicking on the 'selling' tab itself, and you should get acontext menu that includes 'custom columns' (where you can set thecolumns you want directly) and 'Properties', where you can choose thecolumns you want via checkboxes. There should be a 'high bidder'column available.

A. No. JBidwatcher does NOT do that, because that would be counter tothe point of sniping. Sniping is placing a SINGLE bid, once, at theend of the auction, for the maximum amount you're willing to pay. Itdoes NOT keep you as the 'high bidder' of the auction all the wayuntil the end, because that's an explicitly bad position to be in.It's a battle of knowledge. Every bid you place on-site exposes someknowledge about you, and what you're willing to pay, and what you'reinterested in. Sniping minimizes that information leakage by not evenshowing that you're interested in an item until the last seconds ofthe auction.

Picture it this way, if you have a max of $50, an item is currently at$10, and you bid $11 to become the high bidder, and there's 3 daysleft, the other bidder can come back, bid $12, or $15, or $20. If,instead, you wait until there's 5 seconds left in the auction, and bidfor $50, then by the time they get an 'outbid notice' in their email,the auction is already over, and you got it for $11, instead of goingback and forth with other bidders.

Now, if they had bid $65 originally, but the next highest bid (or theminimum bid) was around $10, the amount they have to pay will suddenlyjump from $10 to $51, and they'll win it. Sniping works best againstpeople who try to lowball prices, in which case it's their own fault.Sniping also works best if you put in what you are really willing topay for an item, so that if it goes over that number, you can walkaway comfortable that you wouldn't have been willing to pay that muchfor it anyway.

I don't recommend dialup users set their snipe any faster than 15seconds, and recommend 20-30.

Depending on your DSL and how loaded your connection is, you canprobably go down to around 7-10 seconds.

With JBidwatcher I've sniped at 1 second on a REALLY fast connection,but it was a corporate internet connection, lots of bandwidth,super-low-latency, and an item I wasn't too concerned about losing.

I don't recommend anything near 1 second for home use; clock skew,other programs slowing the system down, random emails coming in, orany other internet traffic can make it so that a really close snipefails.

In fact, I generally advise against going closer than 5 seconds, andeven that is VERY close, and any variation in your local networktraffic or CPU availability can slow the snipe just enough to miss it.

If you want to be relatively safe, stick with 10 seconds on the veryfastest DSL lines, and increase it from there, capping out around20-30 seconds on a slow dial-up connection. DSL is lower-latency thancable, so cable should generally start around 15 seconds at thefastest.

You'll notice that JBidwatcher loads some pages at about 2 minutes +the snipe time before the end. It's not actually sniping, it'spreparing the bid page, so all it has to do is submit one page at thelast moment, to complete the bid. This is tuned to go as fast as itcan.

All that said, sometimes eBay flubs a page-load, and doesn't respond,hanging the connection for 10-20 seconds, before it times out. Whenthat happens, there's nothing to do. It's why JBidwatcher can'tguarantee it'll successfully snipe; the variation of things that cango wrong is far too large. It tries its best, though.

A. If you go into the Configuration Manager, into the'advanced' section, and enter in:display.thumbnail
and set the value tofalse
it won't display thumbnails anymore. (Right-clicking, and choosing'Show Info' will show it, although it still might have issues withreally large images.)

A. You can configure the double-click action to be 'Show in browser' inthe 'General' tab of JBidwatcher's Configuration Manager. Lots of MacOS X users do that, for instance. At that point you can double-clickon the item, and it'll pop up a browser window.

The key is to figure out what the operating system name is, accordingto Java. The property is 'os.name', and JBidwatcher only uses the firstpart, cutting it off at any spaces that might be in the name. Onesource for this is the 'What os or arch value can I use?' list.

So on that list, you'd see the 'os' field for OS/2 being just OS/2, soyou'd understand why the previous answer gives 'OS/2' as the part to putat the end of:

browser.launch.OS/2

but for Irix the configurationkey would be:

browser.launch.Irix

The configuration key is just whatever the local operating system pathto your favorite browser is.

A. JBidwatcher does a LOT of internal work to try and understand what yournetwork delay to eBay is, and takes that into account when placing a snipe.So for instance, if you set 10 seconds, and JBidwatcher determines thatyou have a 2-3 second lag time to eBay, it'll start sending theconfirmation form at 12-13 seconds before the auction ends.

Since it logs in and preps the bid at 2 minutes prior to end, and there'sonly one page that needs to be submitted for the actual bid, this works outpretty well.

Setting the number of seconds from the end to snipe should be how muchbuffer you want, really. If you're on dial-up, the latency variation ishigher, so you want to set your snipe timer higher (like 20-30 seconds),just to absorb that potential variation. If you're on Cable, you have lessvariation, but still pretty high, so you might want to set your snipe timerto 15-20 seconds. If you're on DSL or an equivalent, it's usually a prettypredictable latency (barring BitTorrent or other bandwidth-hoggers), so youcan go down to 10-15 seconds. If you're on a corporate network, and it'susually not saturated, you can get away with lower numbers even still.

But fundamentally, JBidwatcher tries REALLY hard to measure your latency,and add that latency in to when it starts the actual snipe.

A. Just make a copy of the .jbidwatcher directory in your home directory.

On Windows it's usually:C:\Documents and Settings\{username}\.jbidwatcher
On the Mac it's at:/Users/{username}/.jbidwatcher
but you can't use the Finder to see it, you have to get to it from the Terminal.
On Linux, it's just:~/.jbidwatcher

For Linux and Mac OS X (from the Terminal), you can just go:cp -aRv ~/.jbidwatcher ~/jbidwatcher_backup
On Windows, just hold down Ctrl and drag the .jbidwatcher directory either to another directory,or to a free spot in that directory. It will create 'Copy of .jbidwatcher',which you can rename or do what you'd like with.

A. Okay, this isn't really a question people ask, but don't forget to lookinside JBidwatcher's own Help menu for the in-program FAQ! It's got alot of useful stuff about normal usage of the program, and some advancedhints.